On Monday, as players made their way to China’s Sheshan International Golf Club for the WGC-HSBC Champions -- a title Johnson won by three last year but will not defend this week -- social media was abuzz with the fact that Johnson had somehow moved from 17th to 15th in the World Ranking despite his continuing leave of absence.

Playing only through July, Johnson earned $4.25 million in 17 starts. After getting into contention at the British Open at Royal Liverpool, where he faded on the weekend to finish 12th, he skipped the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup -- an early body blow for a U.S. side that would suffer a heavy defeat at Gleneagles. (Johnson was fifth in the U.S. points table when he announced his leave, and had gone 3-0-0 at the 2012 Cup.)

David Winkle, Johnson’s agent, laughed about the apparent contradiction of a player moving up the rankings by sitting on his couch -- or in Johnson’s case, reportedly shooting a pair of 61s at L.A.’s Sherwood Country Club last week, and caddying in bare feet for his pregnant fiancé Paulina Gretzky in Northern Idaho last summer.

“Somebody pointed that [World Ranking oddity] out to me this morning,” Winkle told Golf.com. “It’s funny, this is my 28th year in the business and I still don’t understand how the World Ranking works.”

Other than the suit, which Winkle called “unfortunate,” the agent says Johnson has done everything he planned to do when he cut short a promising 2014 season.

“I have a feeling when he comes back that ranking is going to go up even more,” Winkle said. “He’s worked hard. I think he’s going to come back with a vengeance. His whole goal was to come back a better person and a better player, and I think he’s headed in that direction on both fronts. He had a plan and he stuck to it. I’m proud of him.”

When Johnson comes back is still up in the air. Although his self-described six-month leave of absence would put him back on Tour on Feb. 1, Winkle says Johnson plans to wait until after Paulina Gretzky gives birth to return to the Tour. Neither she nor Johnson has announced a due date, but Paulina appeared to be two or three months into her pregnancy when she posted a photo of herself on Instagram -- to break the news that the couple was expecting -- on Sept. 23. If that assumption is correct it would mean Johnson could return to action sometime during the Tour’s Florida swing in late March.